Word: thunderbolt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Flat-Tired Take-Off. Major Gilbert Wymond, a Thunderbolt pilot from Kentucky, tried the unheard-of stunt of loading his P47 with two 1,000-lb, bombs. The load squashed his fully inflated tires nearly flat on the takeoff, but he staggered into the air. Since then P47 pilots have lugged two 1,000-pounders as a matter of routine...
Four in Hand. A P47 Thunderbolt pilot in Italy fired a long burst at a Messerschmitt 109 over Verona. The enemy's right wing flew off, hit another German plane. Both ships exploded. No one was more surprised than the U.S. pilot when his ship's automatic motion-picture films were run off. Reason: some of his fire had hit two other German aircraft, destroyed them...
Parapants. In Manhattan, Mrs. Virginia Bell Jack received from her Thunderbolt-pilot husband in England a pair of real silk (German parachute) panties...
...High School because he spent too much time tinkering with motors. He learned to fly during two years of engineering study at Purdue. Holder of the D.S.C. and D.F.C., Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, he did not achieve top-scoring distinction easily. He flew his Republic Thunderbolt on 28 missions over Nazi territory before making his first kill...
Three Trumps. Mahurin is tied for fifth place among U.S. aces of World War II. Of the first ten, Major Walter Carl Beckham is the only other one who fought Germans. His Thunderbolt was downed by flak three weeks after his 18th victory (TIME, March 13). The only other Army man on the list is much-decorated Lockheed Lightning Pilot Captain Richard R. Bong (D.S.C., D.F.C., Silver Star, Air Medal, a cluster of ten Oak Leaf Clusters), whose 21 Jap kills put him in fourth place...